


and you have my heart and my voice and my hands

by thompsborn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU, harley is a single dad, mjshuri is a background ship, peter is a teacher, peter is also a single dad, tony/pepper/rhodey is a background ship, where you have a countdown to the moment you kiss your soulmate for the first time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thompsborn/pseuds/thompsborn
Summary: In a world where you have a countdown on your forearm leading up to the moment you kiss your soulmate for the very first time, four people struggle to accept the truth of who their soulmates are, and have to learn that the countdown is never, ever wrong.
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson, background ships that i won't be tagging
Comments: 11
Kudos: 102





	and you have my heart and my voice and my hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shaderose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaderose/gifts).



> this is a (late??) birthday gift for maddy aka shadedrose01 on tumblr and shaderose on ao3. i didn't finish this as fast as i want so i'm splitting it into three parts instead, but hopefully u like it maddy! happy birthday!!

Peter doesn’t mean to stare, but he finds his eyes getting caught on where his sleeve is pushed up just a little bit too far, clutching the pen in his hand on the far side of a little bit too tight as his eyes scan over the shifting countdown etched into his skin, like a living tattoo, the seconds dropping steadily. Two months, seven days, six hours, ten minutes, and twenty seven seconds.

Twenty six. Twenty five. Twenty four. Twenty three. Twenty two.

He looks, sinks his teeth into his lower lip, furrows his brows, and just watches. Fifteen seconds. It’s intimidating, how little time he has left, yet these two months feel like they’re going to last forever. Ten seconds. He’s not sure how to feel about it—excited, in a sense, but nervous, too. More nervous than he’s ever felt before, anxiety and anticipation and the uncertainty of what to expect bubbling beneath his skin and making his palms feel clammy, his heart skipping a beat in his chest. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two.

“Mr. Parker?”

Just as the countdown changes from ten minutes to nine, Peter tears his eyes away, looking up to find a pair of wide brown eyes looking at him nervously, small hands twisting together and a mess of hair spun together in an even messier braid that’s been slowly falling apart all day. Peter lets go of his pen, tries to clear his mind, and offers a kind smile as he responds with, “Hi, Ollie.”

Olivia shuffles her feet, tucks her loose hair behind her ear and mumbles a little, “Hi.”

“What’s up, hon?” Peter asks, propping his chin in his hand and making sure to keep his features open and pleasant, not wanting his previous brooding to make him seem closed off and unapproachable. He glances over at the clock and tries not to frown. “Shouldn’t you be on the bus right now?”

“I, um—” Olivia kicks her foot, scuffs it against the floor with her eyes cast down, refusing to look Peter in the eyes. “I went to the bathroom and the busses were already gone when I came out.”

Peter lets out a long, slow breath and tries not to chuckle, afraid of it coming across as laughing at her when he’s really just finding amusement in the situation. “Ollie, you’re supposed to go to the main office if you miss the busses, and then they’ll call your parents to come pick you up.”

Olivia scrunches her face up, clearly disgruntled. “My daddy says not to talk to people I don’t trust, and the desk lady is always mean to me, so I just came here instead.”

It’s heartwarming, he can’t deny that. He can’t help but softly smile as he asks her, “Miss Judy can come across as a little mean sometimes, huh?” When she decidedly nods her agreement, he can’t help but let out a light laugh. “Well, how about you get a head start on your homework and I’ll call your parents so someone can come pick you up, okay? How does that sound?”

The nervousness seems to disappear in an instant as Olivia beams at him. “Okay!”

Peter shakes his head in amusement, already pushing his office chair over to sit in front of his computer as Olivia happily skips over to the desk that she sits in during class, tossing her backpack onto the floor as she plops into her seat and leans over to pull her sheet of homework from her bag. After grappling for a pencil, she gets to work, her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth in concentration as she looks down at the worksheet, brows furrowed, eyes sweeping from left to right as she reads the instructions. Peter checks quickly to make sure she’s settled before opening up his student files, clicking through the information he doesn’t need before locating contact information for her parents—

Ah. Her _parent._ Singular. Peter clicks his tongue sympathetically, thinks back to the open house they had for parents at the beginning of the year, the one that Olivia and her family never showed up to, and lets out a little sigh, all too familiar with having to miss events like that because of conflicting schedules and only one parent trying to juggle it all. Not that its his business, of course, but he sympathizes nonetheless.

He tries not to think about just how strongly he sympathizes as he picks up the phone to make the call.

Harry pushes his Gucci sunglasses up his face and says, “Mine are cooler than yours.”

Maisie looks at him over the frames of her Minnie Mouse sunglasses and says, with the type of certainty that only a seven year old can have, “Yours are dumb, Uncle Harry.”

The sun shines down like a spotlight as Harry clutches at his chest, as if physically pained by those words. Maisie lets out a giggle at the theatrics and licks at her ice cream cone happily, seemingly unbothered as Harry slumps down on the bench, playing dead. His own ice cream cone drips onto his shirt, but he doesn’t move, too committed to the bit to break character now.

“Did you kill him?” Flash asks as he wanders over to them, taking a large bite out of his hot dog and talking around his mouth full of food. People walking by give him looks of disgust as mustard rolls down his chin. He doesn’t seem to mind, wiping it away without a fuss and saying, “Finally. I hated that guy.”

“Okay, _rude,”_ Harry says, lifting his head to glare at Flash while Maisie lets out a chiming little laugh. “Maisie, tell him how awesome I am and that I’m your favorite uncle in the entire world.”

Flash makes an indignant noise. “Nuh uh. Maisie, tell Harry that I’m your favorite uncle.”

Maisie crinkles her nose at the both of them. “I don’t want to.”

“I’ll buy you another ice cream,” Flash offers. “With extra sprinkles and everything.”

For a moment, Maisie considers this, before turning to Harry and taking on a solemn tone, like a doctor delivering bad news to a patient, even going as far as to place her ice cream sticky hand on his shoulder and giving him regretful puppy dog eyes as she tells him, “Uncle Flash is my favorite.”

“Maisie May,” Harry says, absolutely scandalized. “Did you just accept a _bribe?_ I thought you were raised better than that! Your dad is, like, the most moral guy ever, and you just took a _bribe?!”_

“It’s ice cream,” Maisie says, like that’s plenty enough reason—which, at her age, it probably is. Flash plops down onto the bench with a smug grin, clearly pleased with himself.

Harry deflates, sadly licking his own ice cream. “My feelings are hurt.”

“Cry about it,” says Flash.

“Maybe I will. I’m not afraid to cry, Thompson.”

Flash rolls his eyes. “I know. We watched Inside Out last week and you cried more than Maisie.”

Harry pouts. “That’s not fair. Maisie fell asleep before the super sad parts.”

“You cried more than _Peter.”_

Harry’s pout deepens, but he lets out a sigh and says, “Okay, yeah, you have a point there.” Before Flash can continue to poke fun at him, Harry turns his attention back to Maisie, telling her, “Alright, Miss Maisie. We have an hour and a half until we have to take you back to your dad. What do you want to do?”

For a long, long moment, Maisie just considers this, her brows furrowed together in deep thought, absently eating her ice cream as she contemplates her options. Then, with a matter of fact sort of tone, Maisie simply tells them, “Fish.”

“Fish?” Flash repeats, confused.

Maisie nods. “Fish. I wanna go see the fish zoo.”

Flash blinks once, slow, while Harry barks out a laugh. “You mean the aquarium?”

“Fish zoo,” Maisie says, nodding again.

“It’s called an aquarium,” Flash tells her with a fond, amused smile twitching at his lips, holding up his hands in surrender when she sends him a glare. “Okay, fine. Fish zoo works. We’ll go to the fish zoo.”

Maisie grins, clapping her hands together, somehow managing not to jostle her ice cream cone too much as she does so. Excitedly, she starts to chant, “Fish zoo! Fish zoo! Fish zoo!” while Harry chuckles under his breath, pushing his sleeves up to his elbow absently before joining in her chant just to make her giggle. The sun glimmers against the countdown on his forearm—all zeroes, already complete.

Flash pretends he doesn’t see it as he nudges Maisie and says, “The fish zoo is waiting, Miss May. Let’s get going before they get tired of waiting and decide to close on us, alright?”

Harry lets out a little laugh at that and doesn’t notice when Flash has to look away.

“Excuse me?”

Peter looks up from his computer at the sound of a voice, head snapping over to find a man standing halfway through the classroom door, confusion and uncertainty shining on his features as he looks around the room. He visibly relaxes when he sees Olivia, who looks up from where she’s coloring in a picture of the Transformers and grins upon seeing him, exclaiming an excited, “Daddy!” and bounds out of her seat, sprinting across the room to launch herself into the mans arms.

The man laughs brightly, catching her with ease and swinging her around before engulfing her in a hug. Peter can’t help but smile at the sight, his heart warming as the man coos a loving, “Livbug! How was your day, bubby? I heard that you missed the bus like a little troublemaker, hm?”

“It was an _accident,”_ Olivia says, all giggly and happy as she hugs him. “I had to go potty!”

“Troublemaker,” the man repeats, his grin teasing and loving as he smiles at his daughter. Olivia sticks her tongue out at him, crinkles around her eyes from how big her grin is, before she rests her head against his shoulder and snuggles into him contentedly. The man chuckles, one hand moving to support her weight and the other cradling the back of her head, before turning his attention to Peter, suddenly appearing sheepish as he offers a small smile and says, “Sorry. You must be Mr…?”

Peter pushes himself to his feet, feeling odd sitting down right now, and finishes with, “Peter Parker.”

The man nods. “I should know that. Liv talks about you all the time. Sorry, I’m just kinda spacey today. I’m, um—” he retracts his hand from the back of Olivia’s head and reaches forward, offering it instead. “I’m Harley. Uh—Keener. Harley Keener. Olivia’s dad, if that wasn’t obvious.”

There’s a small chuckle that Peter lets out without meaning to, shaking Harley’s hand with a friendly smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Olivia is always going on about her dad.”

“You’re not telling on me, right?” Harley asks Olivia jokingly, grinning when she giggles softly and shakes her head against his shoulder. To Peter, he says, “Sorry if she kept you from going home.”

Peter waves his hand dismissively. “Not at all! It’s Friday, and I always stay later on Friday’s to get everything ready for Monday so that I won’t have to do any work over the weekend. I’m actually used to having my daughter here, but it’s her birthday weekend and I felt bad making her sit around and wait for me to go anywhere, so I had her uncles take her out for a fun afternoon while I get this done. Having Ollie here was a nice way to fill the silence. You have an incredible daughter, Mr. Keener.”

“Just call me Harley, please,” Harley says, chuckling, his nose crinkling slightly on his face. “I know I’m a dad, but being called Mr. Keener makes me feel way too old. And thanks. Liv’s a keeper, I think.”

“I’m the best,” Olivia murmurs. “Can we go home now? I’m hungry.”

Harley snickers under his breath, but his smile is loving when he tells her, “Of course, ladybug. Go get your stuff, okay?” She nods against his shoulder before reluctantly letting him set her down, quickly making her way back to where she was sitting to gather her stuff and shove it into her white and green polka dot backpack. Harley looks back to Peter, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his neck a bit and sounding unsure of himself when he says, “Thanks for, uh—for calling, I guess? And—yeah.”

Peter thinks it’s an endearing sight, the way this guy—who seems to be the human definition of eye grabbing, at least 5’10, maybe taller, with broad shoulders, blond curls that reach just above his ears in soft looking ringlets, an angular jaw and fairly symmetrical features—is trying to almost shrink in on himself, shoulders bunched up and hands shoved into his pockets, making himself appear smaller than he really is. “It’s not a problem,” Peter tells him. “Seriously. No worries, okay?”

It seems like Harley doesn’t fully believe him, sinks his teeth into his lower lip and frowns a bit, but then he relaxes and nods a bit. “Okay. Thanks. I’m, uh—I’m gonna take her home now, so…” he trails off, tilts his head from side to side, and then laughs a bit before looking to Olivia, who is impatiently rocking back and forth on her feet and staring up at Harley expectantly. “You ready, munchkin?”

“I’m _hungry,”_ Olivia replies, brows raised.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Harley says, shaking his head. “Say bye to Mr. Parker, Liv.”

Olivia spins around, a toothy grin on her face as she waves. “Bye, Mr. Parker!”

Peter smiles at her, waving back and telling her, “I’ll see you Monday, Ollie. Have a good weekend.”

“Thanks,” Harley says again, taking Olivia’s hand in his and hesitating only a moment before leading her out of the room. Peter watches them go, chuckling under his breath, before checking the time. He’s got fourty minutes before he should head home to meet with Harry and Flash. That’s plenty of time to get the last of his work done. Making his way back to his desk, he tries to clear his mind of everything else, even though it seems hard to shake away the image of those stunning blue eyes.

Maisie May Parker turns eight years old on Sunday, April 28, 2019. She gets a Minnie Mouse themed cake, because her love for Minnie Mouse has only seemed to grow stronger with every year that passes, and she blows out the candles with a big smile on her face, all toothy smiles and chiming laughter and glimmering brown eyes that look exactly like her dad’s. Peter tears up when he takes a picture of her with her cake, and he lets out a wet laugh when Harry claps him on the shoulder and says, “Dude, we’re _old.”_

“We’re not even thirty yet,” Peter points out, wiping at his eyes as he watches his daughter excitedly shove a spoonful of Neapolitan ice cream in her mouth, chatting excitedly with Flash, who is sitting next to her and nodding along to whatever it is she’s saying. There’s frosting smeared across Maisie’s cheek from her enthusiasm in eating her cake, but no one makes a move to clean it yet. She’s a messy eater, anyway, and always has been, so there’s no point in getting her to clean up until she’s done.

May comes up to Peter’s other side, her arms folded her over chest, and hums. “You turn thirty this summer,” she tells Peter, before shaking her head and breathing, “God, you’re turning _thirty._ That’s…”

“Insane,” Peter finishes. “Almost as insane as Maisie being eight. Wasn’t she _just_ a toddler?”

“Oh, that feeling will never go away,” May chuckles, patting Peter on the cheek in a loving yet borderline condescending way. “You’ve been an adult for over a decade and I still think of you as a little kid. You were so much cuter as a kid, too, you know that? It was the cheeks. Like an adorable little chipmunk.”

Peter lets out a grown, tipping his head back to direct it up towards the ceiling, like he’s complaining directly to whatever higher power there might be. “Aunt May, seriously? _Now?_ It’s Maisie’s day!”

The laugh that May lets out is dripping with love and amusement. “Honey, if you think that means I can’t poke fun at you, then you still haven’t learned all the perks of parenthood. Have fun with it, will you?”

“You’re the worst,” Peter huffs, but the smile on his face shows that he doesn’t mean it.

“You Parker’s are disgustingly adorable,” Harry says, watching the scene with a little quirk to the ends of his lips. “Seriously, like, really cute family and all, but I might barf. There’s too much lovey-dovey-ness.”

May reaches past Peter to smoosh Harry’s cheeks up with both of her hands, cooing, “It’s cute that you think you’re not a Parker, Harry. You’ve been an honorary member since you were in diapers.” Harry crinkles his nose, but can’t do much more than let out an muffled noise of complaint when May smacks a kiss to his forehead and grins at him. “There! Now you’re part of the lovey dovey, too.”

When she lets go of him, Harry presses his hand down the front of his shirt, as if smoothening the material out will rid him of the moment, even as his cheeks tinge pink with a pleased blush. “Peter’s right,” he says. “You’re the worst, Aunt May. We’re not kids anymore, you know that?”

“You’ll always be my kids,” May tells them simply. Then, raising her voice a bit, she calls out, “That includes you, Gene! You’re my kid, even if you’re almost thirty!”

Flash blinks over at them, a bite of ice cream hovering halfway to his mouth. “Oh. Uh. Thanks?”

May shakes her head at him before walking away, grumbling under her breath about emotionally constipated kids who never learned to accept a parents love. Peter lets her go with a chuckle before making his way over to the table, sitting on Maisie’s other side and brushing her hair out of her face with a loving smile, asking her, “What do you think of the cake, princess?”

“It’s so good!” Maisie exclaims, grinning up at Peter and bouncing a bit in her seat. That’s probably one of his favorite things about her—she’s growing up, and she’s growing up fast, but there are some things that just haven’t changed yet, even as she’s gotten older. She still wiggles in her chair when she sits down, just like she’s done since she was in her high chair, and she still needs to wipe her face off after she eats dessert because she’s too excited to bother being clean with it. They’re such little details, but they’re also little glimmers of innocence, of her youth, and he adores every little bit of it.

“Jess should be here any minute,” Flash says, checking his phone before tucking it back into his pocket. He looks at Maisie and pokes at a chocolate covered dimple, grinning when she swats his hand away and giggles. “You excited to see Auntie Jess, Miss May? She’s almost here!”

Maisie brightens even more, if that’s possible, and shouts a happy little, “Yeah!”

Peter can’t help but laugh at how adorable she is. “Hurry up and eat,” he tells her through a chuckle and a smile that he can’t possible control, feeling more joyful tears prickle the backs of his eyes when she turns her head to look up at him and he’s reminded, yet again, of just how big she’s getting. “Before Auntie Jess gets here, we gotta clean you up and FaceTime Auntie MJ, alright?”

That makes Maisie bounce in her chair again, eyes going wide. “Auntie MJ?! I thought she was busy!”

“She is,” Peter agrees, nodding, “but it’s your birthday, little bug. She made time to be able to call you, and she said she’s gonna come visit as soon as she can, so finish eating and then we’ll call, okay?”

“Okay!” Maisie doesn’t waste time after that, immediately digging into the rest of her cake and ice cream with renewed enthusiasm. It gets on her cheeks, her nose, all over her face, but she just looks so happy and excited, so much joy and love in her eyes. Peter wouldn’t have her any other way, messiness and all.

Harley doesn’t look at his countdown anymore.

He knows he probably should. Like, everyone tells him he should, and they give him a long list of reasons why, and all of those reasons make perfect sense and are definitely valid, but that doesn’t change the fact that he stopped looking a long, long time ago. Like, when he fell in love at seventeen and decided that his countdown was bullshit because it was clear he had already kissed his soulmate way before the clock on his wrist said that he would. And now he’s twenty nine, and a single dad, and he still doesn’t look.

(“It feels like you’ve given up, kid,” Tony tells him sadly, after a Sunday family dinner, when Morgan and Pepper are painting Olivia’s nails and the two boys are waiting their turn to be blessed by the sparkly blue polish that Liv picked out for them. “I was older than you when I met Pep. You have time.”

Harley shrugs and doesn’t let those words mean anything. “I found my soulmate, no matter what my stupid countdown says,” he replies. “I don’t need someone else, Tony. I don’t want them.”)

Olivia likes Harley’s countdown though, always puts out her arm and compares their different times. “There’s so much on mine,” she says to Harley, awestruck and curious. “Yours has so little.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re still so little,” Harley tells her, and then he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, so he pulls down his sleeve to cover his arm and he tickles her until she’s crying with laughter. She wheezes and giggles and half heartedly whacks at his arms until he finally stops and asks, “Do you want chicken nuggets for dinner, or do you want mashed potatoes?”

She forgets about Harley’s countdown after that, which he is grateful for. He tries to forget about it, too, most of the time. All of the time, really. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like what it means.

Because it’s not a countdown to when he meets his soulmate. It’s not something that makes sense, like when you touch your soulmate, when you speak to them, when you look them in the eyes. No, it’s different from that. Everyone has a countdown to the moment they kiss their soulmate for the first time and Harley thinks that it’s absolutely bullshit that his didn’t hit zero when he kissed Mason back when they were in high school.

But that’s not something he wants to think about, either. So, he doesn’t. He doesn’t think about it. When Olivia brings it up or asks about it, he tells her what the countdown is for and he lets her look at his but he never looks down while she’s poking and prodding at it, never lets himself see when he’s supposedly supposed to be kissing the person he’s meant to be with. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t believe it.

“Mr. Parker told us that it’s something to be excited about,” Olivia tells him after school one day, kicking her legs back and forth where she’s sitting on the kitchen counter and carefully skimming her fingertips over the shifting numbers on her forearm. “He says we should look forward to it.”

“You should,” Harley responds, even though he feels like a hypocrite when he says it. Just because he thinks his own countdown is bullshit doesn’t mean he wants to ruin it for her, after all. She deserves to be excited about something, deserves to hope and dream and wish. “Is that all he said?”

Olivia shakes her head. “He also said that sometimes he doesn’t always work like people think it should but that it always ends up being worth it in the end.”

That makes Harley smile, albeit a bit sadly. “You have a smart teacher, ladybug.”

“He’s the best,” she agrees, nodding.

At the time, he isn’t sure he believes that this Mr. Parker is the best. He seems good, based on what Harley’s heard, and all of Olivia’s report cards come home with personlized little notes that sing praise on Olivia’s intelligence and behavior at school, but it’s not like Harley actually knows him.

And then he meets Mr. Parker—Peter, apparently—and he’s…

Well, he’s cute. That’s the first thing that Harley notices. Peter Parker is undeniably attractive, with a curved jaw line and beautiful brown eyes and a few moles dotted over his skin and an open, friendly sort of smile complimenting his features in a stunning sort of way. It’s not the first time Harley has found someone attractive since Mason, but it is the first time that it’s felt so apparent, like a strike to the chest, his heart skipping a beat before picking up speed when they meet eyes. It sucks the air from his lungs. And he’s nice, insanely nice, all soft toned and kind and watching Harley and Olivia with an understanding fondness in his eyes. Harley can barely string his sentences together.

He leaves in a haste because he doesn’t know what else to do, and when he gets home and tells Olivia to go put her stuff in her room, he pulls out his phone and texts Tony, **_What did it feel like when you met Rhodey and Pepper? Like, did you know before your countdowns ran out?_**

A few minutes later, Tony responds with, **_Who did you meet?_**

 ** _No one,_** Harley replies, thinking of sparkling brown eyes. **_Just curious, I guess._**

Eugene Thompson doesn’t look at his countdown anymore, either.

Well—Eugene Thompson doesn’t exist anymore. _Flash_ Thompson does. And Flash Thompson doesn’t look at his countdown because he knows exactly what he’ll see and all it does is remind him of things he doesn’t want to remember. Long suppressed memories that he’s pushed so far down that sometimes it’s easy to pretend they aren’t there, lurking in the back of his mind, waiting to spring on him at the worst of moments. When he’s most vulnerable, least expecting it.

Like when he’s sleeping, for example.

His dreams start normal, as they always do—a bit odd, noncoherent and easily forgotten as soon as his brain jumps from one thing to another, but it doesn’t take long before it starts to base what he sees on memory, things becoming more tangible, more real, less fuzzy around the edges. There’s a dimly lit living room in a frat house, the moon shining through the window and music shaking the ground. There’s Peter, at some point, spinning around a laughing MJ and looking like he’s having the time of his life—back when they were still a thing, of course, before Maisie happened, before they decided that they wanted different things and were better off as friends and nothing more. There’s the shitty strobe lights that someone bought online for as cheap as possible, the ones that are too bright and change colors too fast, and there’s the fog machine that someone else brought because it was close to Halloween and they thought it would add a cool effect to what was already pure chaos on its own.

He remembers that the fog machine made the air feel dense and heavy in his lungs, pressed against his skin in a way that was almost comforting even when it made him sweat. Like a blanket, in a way. If it weren’t for the abundance of intoxicated college students surrounding him, he might have even enjoyed the atmosphere, might have had some kind of fun. As it was, though, he just felt a tad bit overwhelmed, mostly by just how many people there were, all around him, everywhere, bumping into him and nudging him and stepping on the backs of his shoes, making him trip and misstep and stumble.

The dream is nothing more than flashes and blurs and moments from what could either be the best or the worst night of his life. There’s Peter and MJ and Harry. Harry grinning, Harry laughing, Harry throwing his head back with a cackle and a drunken flush to his face. Harry flirting with some redhead and kissing her against a wall while Flash awkwardly shuffled his feet, not knowing if he should leave or not. Harry losing her in the crowd and not being very interested in finding her again.

At some point, some while later, Harry kissing Flash, instead.

Flash doesn’t really remember why it happened, doesn’t remember what lead to it, but if there’s one moment of clarity from that night, it’s that one, when they’re sitting in the back porch and they’re, surprisingly, alone, listening to the muffled bass from the music inside, and one second they’re just talking, but the next second, they’re pressed so close together that they nearly become one combined person, Flash’s back against the railing of the porch, Harry cradling his face in his hands, their noses bumping together whenever they parted for air only to surge forward again and again and again.

And then the back door opened and someone they didn’t know stumbled between them and Flash wakes up so suddenly that it takes a minute for him to remember how to breathe. For a second, he can still feel the kiss and his heart thunders heavily in his chest with the feeling, his palms clammy and his lungs begging for air that struggles to cooperate with him. Part of him wants to go back to sleep just to have the dream again, but most of him doesn’t want to remember, because remembering just means being reminded of what happened after, when the party was over, when they woke up the next morning.

When Flash, who has never been very good at checking his countdown anyway, was surprised to find that he had reached zero without realizing. When Flash, who has been crushing hard on Harry Osborn since the day they met, their freshman year at Midtown, had felt ecstatic at the realization that he had only kissed one person. When Flash, so hopeful at the time, met up with Harry for a greasy breakfast, and—

(“There was a girl, right?” Harry had asked, sunglasses shoved up the slope of his nose, brows furrowed in thought as he stabbed a fork at his waffle with a frown. “I remember that there was a girl, but… but I don’t really remember anything else, and then I woke up with my clock all zeroed out. It must have been her, but if I can’t remember her, then how the hell am I supposed to find her now?”

Flash had almost said that there was another person Harry kissed, but something grabbed him by the tongue and held the words back until he felt like he was choking on them.)

—well, it hadn’t gone like Flash had hoped.

Of course it hadn’t, because nothing ever really does, and he knows this by now, knows better than to hope for much of anything, knows that he should settle for the good things he has—his friends and the fact that Harry is still one of those friends, Maisie and how much he adores being able to be her uncle, his job and all the amazing things he’s able to do with it. His life, where he is now, is good. He can’t be greedy and want more than what he has. This is enough. What he has is enough. He’s satisfied.

But he still dreams of that night, still thinks of it when he’s alone in his apartment and can’t seem to make his mind settle on something else. He still wonders what it would be like if he had told Harry what happened, wonders if things would be different now, how different they would be. Better, or worse.

Flash isn’t sure he wants to know the answer to that. He tugs down the sleeve of his sweatshirt to make sure his countdown is covered and tries, a bit hopelessly, to go back to sleep.

It takes three days before there’s a knock at Peter’s door, around six thirty at night, when he’s serving up dinner for him and Maisie and asking if she got all her homework done. There’s no planned visitor coming over, but it’s not unusual for Harry or Flash or May to stop by unannounced, so he doesn’t think too much of it as he finishes putting a scoop of green beans on Maisie’s plate before pressing a kiss to her forehead and telling her, “I’ll be right back, okay, princess?”

Maisie is already shoveling the green beans into her mouth, but she grins at him and nods and says, “Okay!” before turning her attention back to her plate.

Peter chuckles warmly at her, that ever present love bubbling in his chest, before making his way out of the dining room and towards the front door, not bothering to check the peep hole or peek out the window to see who it is before swinging the door open, a greeting dying on his lips.

Michelle Jones is all teeth and warm eyes when she smiles at him. “You gonna let me in, Parker?”

“Oh my god,” Peter breathes, letting out a light laugh before surging forward to pull her into a warm hug, one that she rolls her eyes at, but returns, nonetheless. “I thought you couldn’t make it until next week!”

“Hey, I may just be Maisie’s aunt,” MJ says with a scoff, pulling back from the embrace to give Peter an amused yet deadpan sort of look, “but I’m the one that gave birth to her, and if I want to show up a week early than I said I would just to surprise my niece and my stupid, idiot of an ex, then that’s what I’m going to do and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop me.”

Peter laughs again, a bit louder, less airy with shock. “I’m not complaining, Jones. Just surprised.”

MJ shakes her head at him. “Let me in, dumbass. I wanna see Maisie.”

“Yeah, right, of course!” Peter ushers her inside, a little pep in his step as he swings the door shut behind them and leads the way down the hall. He’s practically skipping—a twenty nine year old man, skipping with his happiness—when he rounds the corner into the dining room, trotting over to Maisie’s chair and covering his daughter’s eyes, tone light when he says, “Guess who’s here to see you?”

Maisie drops her fork and jumps right into the game, her features screwing up in thought as she lets out a drawn out, “Um… is it… is it Uncle Harry again? He said he was gonna bring me new markers!”

Peter scrunches his nose and laughs. “No, it’s not Uncle Harry. Try again.”

“Is it Grammie?”

“Not Grandma May, either. Think harder, pumpkin. Who haven’t you seen in a while?”

MJ chuckles, already moving down into a crouch a few feet away from the chair Maisie is sitting in, prepared for the way that Maisie thinks for a few more short moments before letting out a loud gasp and exclaiming, “Auntie MJ!” Peter moves his hands with a grin, watching as Maisie springs out of her seat and clambers over to hug MJ tightly, arms winding around MJ’s neck while legs jump to wrap around MJ’s torso, full on koala hugging her with a squeal of excitement. “Oh my god, you’re here!”

“A little late,” MJ says, hugging Maisie back with a content look on her face, “but of course I’m here, kiddo. You turned eight on Sunday! _Eight!_ That’s so much. God, you’re so big now, it’s crazy.”

“Daddy said that I can’t be this big yet,” Maisie informs MJ, pulling back from the hug just enough to grin up at MJ. “And then he started crying and Uncle Flash called him a loser.”

MJ nods like this is the most normal thing in the world. “Sounds like it was a fun birthday party.”

Maisie grins wider. “It was the best.”

Dinner is filled with excited chatter after that, MJ making herself a plate and sitting across the table from Maisie. Peter mostly just listens as Maisie energetically rambles about anything and everything that comes to mind (“She definitely gets that from you,” MJ murmurs to him in the middle of a long story about a dream Maisie had) and MJ nods along, genuine interest shining in her eyes. When they’re all done eating, they migrate to the living room to watch a movie—though Maisie wants to watch more, juts out her lower lip into a pout and begs to stay up longer once Finding Dory is over, but MJ brushes Maisie’s hair out of her face and tells her, “I’ll be here for a couple days, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow, bug.”

It still takes some coaxing, but eventually, Maisie heads up the stairs to brush her teeth, only after making Peter and MJ both promise to come up and tuck her in. Peter feels content in a way that’s slightly different than usual, and he finds himself musing, “You ever wonder if this is how it would have been?” before he can tell himself not to say anything. MJ freezes when he says it, smile dropping, just a bit.

“No,” she tells him after a moment, a tinge of regret to her tone, though the regret is more tied to having to tell him this rather than the actions themselves. “Whenever I wonder what would have happened if I stayed… I can’t picture myself being happy. I wasn’t ready to be a mom, Pete. You know that.”

Peter kind of flinches a bit, but he tries to pretend he didn’t. “I know, I just meant, if… if you had been.”

MJ doesn’t respond for a long, drawn out minute, her jaw clenching and unclenching as she contemplates how to word what it is she wants to say. Her words come out slow and careful when she speaks again, telling him, “Peter, I found my soulmate, and we both know that it isn’t you. You get that, don’t you? We were good together, but we were never… we weren’t meant for forever. And I love being Maisie’s aunt, and being part of her life, and everything that I have now. I wasn’t meant to be her mom. But someone—” she reaches forward, carefully grabs Peter’s wrist and turns it over, pushing up his sleeve to expose the countdown there. She taps a finger against the shifting numbers and tells him, “Someone else is meant to be her parent with you, and you are so close to finding them. You can’t being thinking of all the what if’s between you and me, okay? Because they’re pointless. This is where we are now, and I’m pretty sure neither of us regrets a single moment of anything that happened. I know I don’t. Do you?”

Peter lets out a long, slow breath and murmurs, “No, I don’t, I just…”

He stops, freezes, and turns his head to look at MJ with wide, shocked eyes.

“Did you just… you found them? Your soulmate?”

MJ tries not to let it, but a grin pulls at her lips against her will, her hand pulling back from Peter to reach for her own sweater sleeve, tugging it up to reveal the zeroes on her arm. “Her name is Shuri,” MJ says, an almost childish giddiness in her voice. “She’s a—she’s a _genius,_ Peter. Like, the smartest person I have ever met, and she’s a scientist and an engineer, and I met her at that coffee shop I always tell you about, the one with the really good muffins, you know? She was just in line behind me and I turned around too fast and we bumped into each other and I could—I could just feel it, when we touched. I could tell that she was special, and a few weeks ago, we were just talking, and I saw her countdown, and it was the same as mine, and we finally kissed a few days ago, and it… it’s her, Pete. She’s the one. She’s… god, she’s amazing.”

Peter stares at the zeroes for a long, long time, a conflicting war of emotions battling in his chest. He starts to say, “I always thought—” but then he stops before he can say too much, because he always thought that, maybe, somehow, it really was the two of them. Maybe, somehow, their countdowns just messed up and were counting down to the wrong thing and maybe it would all make sense when they hit zero, but he always knew it was delusional, too. So, he pushes past the slight bubbling disappointment in his twisting stomach and he sports a watery smile that’s just as genuine as it is sad when he tells her, “I’m happy for you, MJ.”

Michelle Jones may not be Peter Parker’s soulmate, but that doesn’t mean she can’t read him like a book. She can see through his wobbly smile and read his mind with ease, and she reaches forward again to bring his attention back to his own countdown. “Two and a half months,” she says. “You’re almost there, Pete. And I know you might be scared now, but once you find them and you feel this, what I feel with Shuri—once you feel that… everything will be worth it. All the waiting, and the worrying, the _hoping._ It’ll all be worth it, okay?”

Peter thinks his heart is breaking a bit, but there’s so much genuine passion and certainty in MJ’s eyes that it’s impossible not to believe her.

All he can do is hope that she’s right.


End file.
